Evaluation of the Maxillary Dental Midline Relative to the Face
Abstract
A general principle of smile design is the maxillary dental midline should coincide with the center of the face. However, little data is available to indicate where to position the maxillary dental midline for patients with asymmetrical faces to optimize dentofacial esthetics. The first manuscript describes lay people and dentists' preferred maxillary dental midline position for symmetrical and asymmetrical faces. The results suggested that overall facial esthetics may be improved for patients with facial asymmetries by slightly deviating the maxillary dental midline from center. The second manuscript compares the concordance of twelve techniques for describing the position of the maxillary dental midline relative to the face with respondents' average preferred maxillary dental midline position for a symmetrical and 22 asymmetrical faces. A novel method that calculates the position of maxillary dental midline based on the position of the nose, cupid's bow, mouth and chin had the highest degree of concordance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA482774
Entities
People
- David A. Rothas
Organizations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill